Where the Wild Things Are
by Taranea
Summary: After a lab accident, Sonic and Tails are trapped in the ancient past of the Stone Age. But history seems to be taking a horrifying wrong turn as they find that far from evolving, civilization is heading into feral decay. As Sonic the hero quickly becomes the hunted in a world of predators, the two unlike brothers need to figure out what is happening and how to save their future...
1. Attenborough's Got Nothing On This

**Where the Wild Things Are**

_by Taranea_

**Chapter 1: Attenborough's Got Nothing On This **

In the living room and house of Miles "Tails" Prower, mechanical genius and aged all of nine years and a half, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mobius' mightiest hero, was snoring blissfully on the worn burgundy couch, utterly at peace.

But he wouldn't be for much longer.

_"Slumbering and sleepily slouching, dormant and defenceless on his back, the hibernating hedgehog is entirely unaware of its dawning deadly demise." _

If Sonic at this point would have opened his eyes and turned his head to his side, what he would have seen were two twitching fox ears poking up and moving along swiftly behind the coffee table. The fox they were attached to was currently also mischieviously grinning from ear to ear, blue eyes peering around the leg of the table as he continued his whispered narration.

"As the mild-mannered mammal continues to snore and drool on couches that don't belong to it, its natural perfidious predator - that's _me_, by the way," - Tails briefly sat up on his knees to look at his invisible audience and jabbed a thumb proudly at his own chest, before dropping down onto all fours again with a hunter's grin, continuing his prowling - "the fearsome fiend that is the Mobian red fox, _vulpes vulpes sapiens_, is approaching his midday snack swiftly and soundlessly through the tall grass of the endless plains of...er..." Tails, still on his hands and knees, now almost up close to the couch Sonic was napping on, paused for a moment, glancing at his surroundings and frowning a bit. "...his living room. Um."

He briefly looked slightly embarrassed at this failing of imagination, but then shook his head and abruptly dropped back into character. Gloved fingers and toes in sneakers dug into the carpet as he bent his head down low toward the floor, back arched high with namesakes excitedly swishing about in the air. Blue eyes narrowed, trained on the azure-furred body lying on the couch above.

"The coiled strength of the prowling predator is visible in the manly muscles underneath his cuprous coat as he crouches, prepared to leap upon his mangy meal and end its ectomorphic existence. Its life is – _forfeit_!" Tails finally yelled the last word as he leaped into the air with a roar, sharp vulpine teeth bared and gloved hands formed into claws to be sunk into his unaware victim.

That was, until one of the eyes of said 'victim' quirked open while Tails was still in mid-flight, the formerly sleeping visage of his brother transforming into a suddenly wicked grin and then the hedgehog had already catapulted out of his reclining position on the couch, catching a (very surprised) Tails in mid-air and threw them both onto the carpet, where a short-lived wrestling match ensued.

"Agh-no _fair_! You were _supposed_ to be the unsuspecting prey!" Tails whined as soon as he had been overwhelmed and was now lying underneath his brother. Sonic raised a rather smug eye ridge.

"Oh, was I?"

"_Yes_!"

"Dunno whether that's just me, li'l bro, but if that was what you were going for, I don't think a...perfidious predator, was it? - is supposed to _narrate_ his actions," Sonic pointed out, sitting back on his knees, while Tails, still on his back now crossed his arms and pouted, looking up at Sonic with a stubborn expression.

"He can if he wants to."

The hedgehog laughed and promptly was cut short by another mock attack of the fox kit when Tails successfully had wriggled out and tried to tackle him again, the pair rolling across the living carpet for another round. Sonic did let Tails win that one after some struggling – although, even if the little fox had already gotten quite good at wrestling and other hand-to-hand combat, it was still obvious that he couldn't yet hold a candle to his older brother. It was likely because of this that, even after he had 'won', the younger of the two Mobians still flopped down on the blue hedgehog's chest with a slightly put-out expression.

"'s not fair if you only _pretend_ to be asleep, Sonic. How else am I supposed to ever win?"

The hedgehog snorted. "You'll hafta wait a couple years for that, squirt. Maybe one day you'll be bigger than me, then you can try again."

Tails pouted. "But I don't _wanna_ wait that long."

"Now that's a sentiment I can get behind," Sonic chuckled (even if he kind of actually hoped that moment wouldn't come for a while yet; he knew Tails as a fox would likely some day grow to be taller than him – _as long as I continue to get him to eat some decent food instead of friggin pop tarts at any rate, _the hedgehog thought dryly– but, even if Sonic had long since made peace with the fact that he as a hedgehog did belong to one of the smaller Mobian sub-species, he knew he enjoyed being able to lift Tails off his feet for as long as it would last.)

"So, anyway," he said as he picked up both of them from the floor. "Anything you wanted to tell me? Is your thingamajiggy done?"

"My _universal translating module_," Tails corrected his brother patiently, "and yes, it is. Now we can try teleporting us somewhere to see how it works!" Annoyance at still being the shorter of the two completely forgotten, Tails was already excitedly bouncing again and had started to pull Sonic from his living room into the corridor and down the staircase toward the underground lab of his workshop-cum-house amid the Mystic Ruins.

Sonic didn't live here – he had a small apartment in Station Square – but visited and/or stayed overnight often enough that it could have qualified as a second dwelling place for him regardless. Today, he had actually come by because Tails had claimed he had almost finished his newest invention and needed Sonic to give it a test run. (Which usually always meant a very sudden feeling of dread for the hedgehog. But this time Tails had assured him it wasn't something that could explode, but rather only a babelfish-like telepathic translator chip that would enable anyone who wore it to understand everyone else, regardless of language. However, for them to check if it worked, Tails had also said they'd need to teleport somewhere _very_ far away, where the language the natives spoke would have no common linguistic roots with New Mobian at all.)

"See here?" Tails now held two small, black, spider-like chips with a clipping mechanism out on his palm. "We just clip it into our ears, I made two prototypes so we can both try them."

"Like this? _Ow_!" Sonic yelped a little, hand automatically flying to the ear he had stuck the translator chip onto. The appendage had folded itself flat against his head automatically at his wince. " Tails, it _bit_ me!"

"Yeah, I designed yours to be extra-hard to dislodge, knowing the speeds you go at," Tails informed him cheerfully, earning himself a flat stare from his older brother. "No worries, the needle is microscopic and should only have pierced the really far out edges of your ear. When I remove it, the wound should close up near instantly again."

"Gee, thanks, bro. I always did want to have my ears pierced for jewellery." Sonic threw Tails a slightly peeved look, but the two-tail only gave a marginally guilty grin in return.

"Heh, okay, I _am_ sorry about that. I promise I'll cook breakfast for all of next week?"

"...fine," Sonic sighed, who knew he wasn't able to stay mad at the kit for longer periods than that anyway. "So what next?"

"Well, all you have to do is place your hand on the Emerald," - Tails gestured at the one green Chaos Emerald he had asked Sonic to procure last week, which was now encased in a strange metal ring holding it above a mechanical pillar attached to various power cables and a computer terminal- "keep a hold of me like when you do a normal teleport and then try and Chaos Control us to the other side of the planet," Tails explained. "As soon as you shout the command, I'll add the auxilliary power which should super-charge the Emerald so we can actually travel that distance."

"Huh. Alright. And this contraption is gonna come with us?" Sonic asked, indicating the metal pedestal and the machinery attached.

"No." Tails shook his head. "Just the super-charged Emerald, but that should be enough to get us home once I've been able to conduct my experiment."

"If you say so, li'l bro," Sonic shrugged easily, placing his right hand on the stone and his other on the shoulder of the fox kit. He wasn't actually too sure where he should teleport to (although there _were_ in fact places he hadn't yet visited; either due to Robotnik or other disasters keeping him busy or because he didn't fancy having to fly in a plane for hours across an ocean to get to one of the two continents of the other side of the planet when there was perfectly fine landmass for running on just outside of his front door) but he vaguely knew what they looked like from TV documentaries, so that should be enough for a Chaos Control, surely?

Besides, the Emeralds sometimes did seem to have a bit of a helpful mind of their own, Sonic had often thought, and so far, his Chaos Controls (even his first, disastrous one when he had thought he was about to die in Robotnik's capsule) had always led him to where he had wanted to go. And so, the blue hedgehog closed his eyes, for a moment visualizing the images of the far-away places in front of his mind's eye, untouched ancient forests and endless plains filled with weaving grass, concentrating on his brother's wish – _a place so removed, that no one there spoke their language at all..._

Sonic drew a breath and opened his eyes. "CHAOS CONTROL!"

And when his world then seemed to turn inside out and it felt like his insides were compressed, ripped apart and then drawn down a drain before everything _exploded_, Sonic got his first clue that something about that teleport probably had not gone _quite_ like he had expected.

_To be continued..._

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><p>Happy New Year everybody! :D Have a new fanfic to go with it :3 Anyone who still remembers the (literal) plot bunnies in Burning Arrow might find the next chapter a teensy bit familiar, but of well. This one has been in the works for a while, hope you're all in the mood for a Sonic-and-Tails brotherly-fluff-filled adventure romp! :)<p> 


	2. Dinner Invitation, Please RSVP

**Anonymous Review Replies!**

shadowspinner22: Thanks! I try :)

DEV: Hah, ja, man sollte meinen, Sonic lernt irgendwann was aus dem Chaos Control-Chaos, oder? XD (HInt: Tut er nicht. Nächstes Crossover mit Emerald-Unglück ist bereits in Planung^^) Ich bin selber gespannt, wie sich die Story hier entwickeln wird - der Plot ist natürlich schon in Notizen vorhanden, aber da ändert sich garantiert nochmal n bisschen was dran :p Wie immer danke für den Kommentar! :D

briana: I do my very best ;) I don't actually get to write Sonic and Tails together that often, so when I do, the fluff tends to overflow. Let's hope they make it through all right! :p

Nefres: Thanks for leaving a review despite being on mobile! Hope you like the new chapter!^^

**Note: **Yeeeah, those of you who have read my other fic,_ Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart_ will already have read this chapter's scene. Sorry! But you can look forward to next chapter's all original content :) Those of you who _haven't_ read_ Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart_...well, you've got something to read after this! Awesome, no? :p (Naw, seriously. The two fics are unrelated, but both are adventure type Sonic stories featuring Sonic and Tails, so you might like that one, too ;) )

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: Dinner Party, Please RSVP<br>**

"Tails! Tails, where ARE you?!" Sonic called again and again, cupping his hands in front of his mouth to make his voice even louder, but to no avail. The little fox didn't answer.

"Damn." Sonic sighed in frustration, worry clenching up his stomach. He had no idea where he was or what dangers could be surrounding them. Technically, he knew the young kit had already grown strong and more than capable of handling a lot of things on his own, but still…the blue hedgehog supposed that being a big brother was something that you simply couldn't outgrow. He probably would still be worrying about Tails if they both reached ninety (and then constantly would have to remind him not to forget his false teeth).

"Which we _won't_, if I don't manage to find him. TAILS!" Sonic muttered to himself before starting to call out again. But the thick green foliage of the jungle surrounding him on all sides muffled the sounds and swallowed his voice right up. The brilliant emerald canopy probably also meant that Tails stood no chance of finding Sonic himself by flying high overhead. Drawing another deep breath, the hedgehog squared his shoulders and started walking again. Where were they? The last thing Sonic remembered was him and Tails being in the Mystic Ruins in the fox' workshop, preparing to Chaos Control. But then, there had been a power surge, and an explosion and the feeling of your insides being mixed in a blender…

_And then I woke up like twenty minutes ago here, in the jungle, with no Emerald, no idea where I am and even less of an inkling where Tails could be. Well, shit,_ Sonic thought. _This forest does seem vaguely familiar, though…_

Which was when he stopped and stared at the giant temple suddenly looming before his eyes on a clearing.

"What the – the echidna ruins?!" Sonic exclaimed. That would mean he hadn't even travelled very far and was barely fifty miles from Tails' workshop! He could even have run into Big while still thinking he was on another continent! Sonic laughed out aloud, before something else caught his eye and he abruptly stopped.

Yes, these were the mystic echidna ruins he had entered more than three years ago when they had been fighting against Chaos, but they had changed – these weren't ruins anymore, they looked brand new and well-maintained. Barely any moss covered the stones now and the broken steps and chunks missing from the murals had been repaired. And now that he thought of it, if this were the jungle Big the Cat lived in, he would have had to come across a pathway by now, the Zone was practically littered with them ever since the humans had started exploring it…

Sonic abruptly took off and raced toward the cliff he knew had to be close by. Trees became a blur as he dodged around them with single-minded agility, lianas tearing over sharp spines when he spin-dashed his way through the mess trying to stop him and didn't slow down until he was right at the edge of the sheer drop that would enable you to look down into the valley that contained Station Square.

And Station Square wasn't there anymore.

"Ooookay…" Sonic took a step back, now just starting to get a little bit freaked out. He could definitely recognize Emerald Coast's coastline from here, which had to mean that the city had really vanished, just like the pathways and he thought probably Big's hut as well. But the echidna temple still stood in all its long-ago splendour, which could only mean…

"Tikal?" Sonic called out tentatively. "You there? Is that some crazy dream again where you show me something freaky in the past and then I wake up and everything is okay?" He paused, before adding, "Please appear now and say that it is."

Nothing happened.

"Damn," Sonic said again and really meant it.

Had he travelled in time? Was this Mephiles' doing? Or maybe even another genie or sorceress asking for his assistance and pulling him into a story world? Well, with the way my life has been going recently it could be any one of a dozen things, up but not limited to, blue policeboxes...

"Shoot. I just hope Tails is okay," he muttered to himself again, ears folding flat against his skull in worry, but was interrupted.

"N-no! Help! Anything but _that_, please! HELP! _HELP_!"

Sonic's head flew around, his ears at once wide open and swivelling toward the source of the noise. It hadn't been Tails, but the voice of a young female, her high-pitched shrieking indicating that she was terrified for her very life.

Sonic took off like a bullet. It didn't matter whether this was a dream, a fantasy or a different dimension entirely, he wouldn't let anybody get hurt if he was there to prevent it. He hurled himself over a stream, passed by where Big's hut would have been and came to a screeching halt in another clearing, which was smaller, but held the first people he'd seen ever since he woke up.

"What is going on here?" Sonic demanded as soon as he'd stopped, knowing that taking the initiative was half the battle won. Tails had told him that the chip also had a limited sending range, meaning that whoever was around him should be able to understand him as well. (This had been followed by a longer explanation on the fox' side of electric impulses in the brain, certain radiowaves and the make-up of a synapse as well as the meaning of Telepathy, but Sonic had mostly drowned that out and afterwards patted Tails' head and told him that if he ever invented a chip that would enable normal people to understand all of his technobabble, then he would be a genius.)

The group on the clearing turned toward him. Sonic noted that they were all Mobians, quite a few wolves, interspersed with an occasional fox, bob cat, one or two reptiles – Sonic wasn't that great at identifying species that weren't mammals – a lynx, a dark-furred wolverine, and even a large bear. One of the wolves was holding down a squirming rabbit girl who seemed to be bleeding heavily from her thigh, indicating that she was the one who had screamed.

"_Another _rodent?" One of the wolves cocked his head, regarding Sonic curiously with the others. The hedgehog was getting ever more weird vibes from the maybe twenty Sapients on the clearing, but resisted the urge to take a step backwards. Instead he narrowed his eyes and raised his quills a little, an instinctive reaction of his body to appear more intimidating.

"That's _Sonic the Hedgehog_ to you," he shot back, but even the dropping of his name seemed to have no effect, cementing his theory further that he had landed far, far away from home. The others just stared at him ever more suspiciously, their gazes resting on his shoes and gloves. Sonic now noted that all of them indeed seemed a bit feral, barely any of them wearing clothing and their tangled pelts a far cry from his own groomed and trimmed appearance. Even the females had barely more than three garments made from rags between them, their fur appearing a lot thicker than that of the girls Sonic was used to. Hadn't a teacher long ago told him that Mobians used to keep longer fur in primitive cultures before they had chosen to wear clothes…?

At that point the girl cried out again in pain and Sonic immediately snapped back into the present. Clothing was literally the least of his worries at this point.

"And what on Mobius is going on here? Let her go!" he commanded the wolf bent over the rabbit. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

This for some reason provoked a barking laugh from the assembled crowd.

"What we're doing?! We've caught a rabbit! What are you, blind or suicidal?" the bob cat asked with a sharp, yellow-toothed grin. Her golden eyes glowed with wicked amusement and she added, "Or has your crazy fur colour gotten to your head?"

"My crazy _what_?" Sonic repeated, dumb-founded for a moment. These people were about to kill that girl or worse (or, technically, were about to receive the thrashing of their life from Sonic, they just didn't know it yet) and they were talking about fur colours?!

Then again, Sonic also couldn't help but notice that nearly the entire group indeed had pelts in the hue of their feral ancestors – brown and green colours to blend in with the natural environment. Nowadays, technicolour Mobians were no rarity any more ever since evolution had stopped weeding out anyone who couldn't hide in a mud ditch and instead favoured those who looked especially cool when bathed in shining disco lights, but these people didn't look exactly like they knew even the meaning of 'cosmopolitan'.

"Obviously insane. We should do him a favour and kill him," the bear announced, taking a step into Sonic's direction.

One of the reptiles, a purple lizard, briefly shot his tongue out. "I don't know. What if hiss lack of fear iss due to rabiesss?"

"Excuse me?!" Sonic shot back, not exactly sure why that lizard looked somewhat familiar (and was already getting on his nerves). "The only one who's in need of a shot for insanity here is you! Now let her go already if she hasn't done anything!"

"My, isn't he cute." The bob cat grinned. "Maybe he's her mate or something, that would explain why he isn't running away. I say we finish her off and kill him, too."

"Sure. Let's flank him. Rough, you kill the rabbit." The wolverine addressed first the golden-eyed feline, then the wolf concerned with pressing the girl to the ground. The canine named Rough nodded.

"Yeah. Go catch him. And as for _you_, pretty…"

Sonic couldn't believe his eyes as the wolf then opened his maw and apparently was ready to bite the girl in the neck. The rabbit screamed...

When both the wolves and the bob cat shot forward, their target was already gone. Sonic had reached the other side of the clearing in half a heartbeat and it took even less time for his sneaker to connect forcefully with Rough's side, the kick sending the wolf tumbling away before his teeth could even touch the girl. The group's heads snapped around, their wide eyes showing the astonishment of everyone confronted for the first time with the speed of the fastest thing alive. Sonic bared his own small teeth, an unconscious reaction to the feral hostility surrounding him. Now he stood in front of the shocked girl, his quills fully raised.

"You're _sick_, all of you. Get the hell away from here before I forget myself."

"You…you dare to attack a _wolf_?" a bigger member of the grey-furred canines barked. "You just sealed your death sentence!"

Sonic barely had time to prepare before they rushed him. He was used to people fighting differently – usually, there would be hesitation, people would try to see if the _other_ members of the group weren't keener on promotion and they could maybe, you know, attack when it isn't dangerous anymore or something. Usually, people attacked with a bit of order. Usually, people attacked with punches or kicks – Sonic had even encountered a range of martial artists before, who either recognized that trying to throw something that has spikes everywhere was generally painful or that even a black belt didn't help much when your opponent threw kicks faster than the speed of sound. _These_ Mobians, however…

Sonic felt like he was faced with a pack of rabid feral dogs. (Which he had already been. He still vividly recalled when a very young Tails had run toward him screaming, the entirety of a human fox hunting party on his trail…) But these were supposed to be sapient people. Yet they still lunged, snarled, slashed and snapped at him as if he was the Gingerbread man who'd walked into an Overeaters Anonymous convention.

Sonic dodged the first assault of a wolf's jaw snapping shut where his throat had just been and the second attacker caught a faceful of spines, sending the fox away howling with pain. Kicks and punches of the hedgehog landed in bellies, faces and more than one of his attackers didn't get up again, clutching at their knees or stomachs groaning. Sonic took care not to let even one of them past to get closer to the rabbit lying him, who was watching the hero of Mobius fight with wide, torpid brown eyes. The bear was the last to go, who had given Sonic – who was unwilling to kill – some trouble, the hedgehog's small fists and feet standing little chance against the bulk of the grizzly. However, even that problem was solved when eventually, the blue speedster simply raced up a tree, spun in the air, and landed on the skull of the large mammal with both his heels outstretched. The bear fell backwards and touched ground at the same time as Sonic, who was finally able to go back to the girl without anyone still there or conscious enough to bother him anymore.

"Hey there. You alright?" he asked, helping her sit. The light-brown rabbit girl with the rose-coloured bellyfur appeared to be an older teenager, perhaps around his own age of seventeen, long, blond hair held together by a leather band in a ponytail falling down her back. "It's okay. I stopped them from killing you, you're safe now," Sonic said in the soothing voice he usually adopted for recent victims of Robotnik. "Why don't you tell me your name?" he suggested.

"Bu-bunnie, but…"

"Bunnie! That's great, I'm Sonic. We're friends already, see? Now here, let me help you stand so I can bring you home…" the hedgehog chattered on, knowing that enough talking would eventually get through the shock from experience. "How's that leg of yours? Can you walk? You haven't seen a two-tailed fox by any chance?"

"What?" the rabbit called Bunnie blinked at the last question, but let Sonic drape her arm over his shoulders and made an effort to get up. The blue hedgehog noticed she was a very pretty girl at that, her slender, toned body feeling soft against his. What had they thought he was, her mate? Sonic snorted briefly, thinking that Bunnie probably already had one, if not a dozen suitors. Now she was standing a bit shakily while she leaned on him, trying to put weight on her injured leg.

"You defeated all of them," she stated, looking at the few unconscious Mobians still lying on the clearing, the rest having fled. Sonic nodded.

"Yeah. I did warn them, though," he pointed out.

"But…you're a hedgehog, right?" the rabbit still sounded more freaked out than re-assured.

"Well, last time I checked, anyway," Sonic joked weakly. "What did you think those things on my back were, a misplaced Christmas tree?"

"A what?" Bunnie blinked again, looking confused. "I...no, but well…hedgehogs are like...rodents."

"Sort of, I guess," Sonic replied, not sure where this impromptu biology exam was coming from. "Eh, look, no matter my species, I need to take you somewhere. Where do you live? And speaking of which, where are we anyhow?"

"Um, we're close to the great river. My family lives that way," she pointed toward the other side of the clearing and Sonic frowned. 'Close to the great river' did not sound like a very helpful term if you were looking for it on a map. When he didn't move immediately, Bunnie shifted slightly against him. "Do, do you think we could start walking now? I don't want to be here when they wake up," she swallowed, a shiver running through he form when she looked at the unconscious bodies on the ground. Sonic briefly shook his head.

"Er, yeah, course, sorry. Let's take you back to your family." _Maybe someone there can tell me where on Mobius I am..._

They started to gingerly move forward, the rabbit's steps more of a hobble, but at least she was able to support herself on the hedgehog's shoulders well enough. When they had found a rhythm after a few minutes, Sonic cleared his throat.

"So, why were these people after you anyway? I hope I haven't just rescued a convict," he gave a small laugh.

"What do you mean, why were they after me? They are predators," the girl replied, looking anxious and Sonic had to bite back an annoyed groan. Didn't this girl care about anything but species?_ ...or did she mean 'predators' in a way more horrible way?_ flashed through Sonic's mind and the hedgehog swallowed, suddenly terribly unsure on whether he should press Bunnie on that topic if she didn't want to talk about it. Quickly, he tried to change the topic, also because he now noticed that the wound on her leg was bleeding quite badly.

"Hey, uh, your leg holding up? What happened to it? Are there any animals here that we need to look out for?"

Now it was her turn again to shoot a glance that suggested the hedgehog was a bit slow on the uptake.

"Well, the _wolves_ bit me, of course. And what else what would we be looking out for except the ones you just fought?"

"Wait." Sonic paused. "Did you say one of those guys just now _bit_ you? Like that?" Sonic asked, having stopped and pointing at the brown-furred thigh. "Why on Mobius would he do _that_? Are they some weird, I dunno, vampire sect or something?"

"A what? You're strange," Bunnie replied, looking into his eyes slightly disturbed. "No, he bit me because they wanted to _eat_ me, of course."

Sonic nearly dropped the girl.

_To be continued... _

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><p>Aaaaaand storyline about to kick off! :D Wonder whether Tails is lunch yet or if not, whether he is far from Sonic...:p Hope you liked, and if you read, please review! :D<p> 


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